Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton will join oil giant Royal Dutch Shell as a general counsel in its exploration and production business in mid-January, working primarily out of Colorado.

Norton, who stepped down from Interior in March, is a longtime Colorado resident who served two terms as state attorney general in the 1990s. During her tenure at Interior, she drew fire from environmentalists and praise from industry groups.

Shell said in a statement Wednesday that Norton, 52, will “provide and coordinate legal services” for its unconventional-resources unit, which is developing and testing proprietary technology to recover oil from shale and extra-heavy oils.

Colorado, Utah and Wyoming have massive oil- shale deposits, with as much as 1.1 trillion barrels of oil technically recoverable.

Shell owns 40,000 acres of oil-shale deposits near Meeker on which it hopes to begin commercial production by about 2015.

When Norton left Interior after five years, she said her primary reason was so she and her husband, John Hughes, could return to “the mountains we love in the West,” as well as return to the private sector.

Norton could not be reached for comment.

Royal Dutch Shell is a multinational oil company with corporate headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands. Its U.S. subsidiary, Shell Oil Co., is based in Houston. The Forbes Global 2000 ranked Royal Dutch Shell as the seventh-largest company in the world in 2006. Its revenues in 2005 were $307 billion.

As Interior secretary, Norton was attacked by environmentalists for her pro-development policies regarding oil and gas, coal and timber. She also reopened Yellowstone National Park to snowmobiles.

Matt Baker, director of Environment Colorado, said he was disheartened by Shell’s hiring of Norton.

He said his organization has done a lot of work with Shell on sustainability issues, particularly development of wind-powered energy resources.

“I think it’s unsettling if she’s going to be working on oil shale. Shell has cultivated an image as a good environmental steward who wants to take its time and do it right,” he said. “For them to hire someone like Gale Norton undermines that claim.”

Industry advocates and Norton’s fellow Republicans, however, have praised her as a realist willing to open public lands to drilling during a time of energy shortages that threatened the economy.

Before moving to Interior, Norton was senior counsel at Denver law firm Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber.

Steve Farber, one of the firm’s founding partners, said Norton’s move is win-win: Shell will benefit from Norton’s skills, and Norton will have the opportunity to return to Colorado.

“She (has) a wonderful wealth of knowledge and experience, and she will be a great asset to the team at Shell,” he said.

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